Virgin Suspends Flights Between Darwin and Adelaide

A Virgin Airways aircraft at Heathrow Airport in London, on Oct. 11, 2016. Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Virgin has suspended flights between Darwin and Adelaide from June this year during the height of Northern Territory’s tourism season.

The flight route has been suspended indefinitely due to demand concerns, prompting the airline to prioritise flights between other cities.

A Virgin Australia spokesperson confirmed the airline had made some adjustments to schedule following a review of their network for the summer 2025 season between April and October.

“This will see Virgin Australia increase seat capacity through Darwin by approximately 6 percent compared to the same period last year,” the spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

“As part of this review, we have made the difficult decision to indefinitely suspend our seasonal Adelaide-Darwin route based on low forecasted demand.”

Virgin said they understood this would be disappointing for some guests, but explained it enables them to reallocate capacity to markets where demand is higher.

“Additional flights will be scheduled on Brisbane to Darwin and Melbourne to Darwin routes during the peak season from June to August 2025,” a Virgin spokesperson said.

“Virgin Australia’s overall Northern Territory capacity will increase by approximately 3 percent compared to the Northern Summer 2024 season driven by seasonal increase on Darwin routes as well as our recently launched Uluru services.”

The changes to the Adelaide to Darwin flight schedule will be implemented from June 22, providing guests with a few months of notice to make alternative plans.

Travellers will be offered alternative options or a full refund. The airline will continue to operate regular direct services between Darwin, and Brisbane and Melbourne. 

NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro was unhappy with the move, labelling it as “awful” and unbelievable.

“This is a big part of why we need to rebuild the economy. We need to grow our population, we need more business happening here,” she said in an interview with ABC Radio Darwin.

“And these airlines need to be held accountable for what they’re doing to regional Australia.”

Virgin will add extra capacity on routes between Darwin and Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth for the northern summer 2025, between April to October.

This includes up to two services per day from Brisbane, up to to nine services per week from Melbourne and between five and seven services per week from Perth.

Competitor Qantas is set to add flights between Darwin and Singapore from March 30 on the brand new brand-new A220 aircraft.

On-Time Departure and Arrival Figures Released

Meanwhile, the latest on-time performance statistics for the month of December shows an average of 74.7 percent of planes arrived on time and 74 percent departed on time.

The cancellation rate across all airlines—Hinterland, Jetstar, Qantas, QantasLink, Rex Airlines, Skytrans, Virgin Australia, and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines—was 1.8 percent.

The on-time arrivals figure in December was markedly less than the long term average of 80.7 percent, federal government data released on Jan. 22 showed.

In addition, the on-time departures figure was also lower than the long term average of 81.8 percent. However, the rate of cancellations was less than the long term average of 2.2 percent.

Virgin Australia network achieved 75.1 percent for on-time arrivals in December compared to 73.7 percent for the Qantas network.

Virgin also achieved 74.4 percent for on-time departures, while Qantas network recorded 73.1 percent in the month of December.

Flights between Canberra and the Gold Coast achieved the top rate of on-time arrivals at 95.8 percent, while the route between Adelaide and the Gold Coast boasted the peak rate of on-time take-offs, at 91.9 percent.

Overall, Qantas said that 76.1 percent of Qantas flights left on time in 2024. The airline said December was one of the airline’s busiest festive seasons on record.

Cancellation rates for Qantas flights in December were 2.7 percent, falling from 3.4 percent in the previous month of November.

Qantas Domestic CEO Markus Svensson said the airline had seen positive improvements in the past 12 months, off the back of the work of staff.

“We are pleased that we continued to see year-on-year improvement in our operational performance but there is still more work to do as it’s still not back at the levels that we are targeting,” he said.

“We are investing a lot in areas like engineering and efficient boarding processes to further improve our reliability and are working with the broader aviation sector on how we can lift the performance of the industry as a whole.”